The Code that never was

A.Paulita Roa

WHEN I was a high school student, I remember that the Kalantiaw Code was compared to the Hammurabi Code of ancient Babylon. A quick search in Wikipedia revealed that this code dates back to 1772 B.C. It is considered one of the oldest deciphered writings in the world. There is a nearly complete code that is written on a 2.25 meter diorite stele in shape of a huge finger and is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The sixth Babylonian king Hammurabi wrote this code and it consists of 282 laws with scaled punishments adjusting “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (ex talionis) as graded depending on social status of a slave and a freeman.

Nearly a half of the code deals with matters of contract like the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Or terms of liability of a builder for a house that collapsed. A third of the code addresses issues about household and family relationship and even sexual behavior. Then there are provisions on issues related to military service. An interesting provision for a judge who gave an incorrect decision–he must be fined and removed from the bench permanently.

And then, we have the Ten Commandments found in the Old Testament that form a central core of morality that is considered a major advance from other legal codes during the time of Moses. From a commentary in the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible, there is this phrase “Judeo-Christian” ethics that is often heard in courtrooms and legislative chambers. This refers to the broad moral principle that is derived from the laws found in the Old Testament.

This complete legal code extends from national policy to petty disputes of living together. The God of Israel was shaping an entire culture for a group of homeless people who came out of Eygpt. In all, 613 separate commands ordered their political, social and spiritual laws.

Punishments given emphasized what is fitted to the crime-estitution rather than vengeance. Here are some examples of laws of justice and mercy:

“Do not spread false reports. Do not help a wicked man by being a malicious witness. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under a heavy load, do not leave it there. Be sure you help him with it.”

However, the contents of the Kalantiaw Code leave much to be desired. Dr. William Henry Scott described it as “peculiar.” He wrote that They were presumably promulgated by a central authority of sufficient power to put local chieftains to death for failure to enforce them, and prescribed 36 different offenses irrationally grouped in 18 theses, punishable by 15 kinds of corporal and capital punishment bearing no relation to the nature and severity of the crime.

The code is thought to be vicious in its catalogue of punishments that sounds like it came from a mad man or a sadist–plunging the hand into boiling water three times, cutting off the fingers, laceration with thorns, exposure to ants, swimming for three hours, drowning with weighted stones, beating to death, or being burned, boiled, stoned crushed with weights, cut to pieces or thrown to crocodiles.

Genuine Philippine custom law as described by early Spanish colonial records permits even the most serious offenses to be settled by payment of fines or by debt servitude. And this is true to  all local cultures that never submitted to Spanish sovereignty.

Scott rued at the “pedagogical mischief” that has been done to more than three generations of Filipino students that their ancestors suffered a society submissive to such a legal system. He wondered if his successors “are still sharing their classrooms with this Filipino phantom and the law code that never was.” (to be continued)